The Golden Rule
written by Jihadi Jew on blogger on Sunday, January 9, 2011
Hello Readers,
It’s me, Bad Hijabi with a quick note to introduce another post of Jihadi Jew’s I decided to revive.
Imagine that you can only learn something when your nervous system is in its safe social zone (biologically referred to as the ventral vagal state). Therefore you know the teacher has successfully co-regulated when you have learned the lesson, when the information imparted has become knowledge you can use to cut life — knowledge is for cutting, not for hoarding, not for building thrones at the expense of others. Humans cannot learn in a threat state — we cannot learn when we are stuck in frozen, flight, or fight modes.
Teachers provide an invaluable skill, then — they help anchor us to biological-social safety. In my own life, from the time of adolescence, learning has provided me with an opportunity to move thru all the noise that trauma left behind. It never occurred to me to see things this way until recently. Learning is how I reset myself often in high school after being molested and throughout trying to survive a psychologically gritty early adulthood. As long as I had higher learning to fall back onto I could function with the ridiculous and traumatic stressors pressing in on my life.
In my conversation with Justin, we discussed the fact that we seem intent on doing things to others that we hate done to ourselves — on a biological level (below the level of awareness) we seem to know things about others, don’t we? We seem to go for the jugular, often out of spite, or in some orgasmic drive to right a perceived wrong.
Think about whether the thing you support for society or any group therein is the thing you want for yourself or your kids or grandkids. For example, why would you support blowing up any family compound for a few bad criminals when you would not want that yourself? For example, why would you support destroying an existing country when you yourself live in a country that your would not want to be destroyed? Why would you advocate for the mass murder of anyone, when you would feel devastated if even your dog or gecko were murdered?
Why don’t you want to protect your neighbour from the things your yourself do not want to endure? Think about the values you are amplifying in your engagement, think about what you are living — you get to choose, no one else is responsible for you. Helplessness is an illusion. You are an individual unit who can choose and you are connected to humanity and have a responsibility for yourSelf in the network of Selves. Both are true at once.
Below the line is something Lee Weissman wrote in 2011. The point of these comparative posts being — there are no sides, there is no Other, there is only humans who do stupid things when we get swept into the social frenzy of nervous system dysregulation.
It happened that a certain Non-Jew came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a convert to Judaism, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the carpenter’s yardstick which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, [and said the same thing. Hillel responded, ] ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary; go and learn it.
- Talmud Bavli – Shabbat 31a
[Hillel and Shammai were Rabbis of the 1st century BCE. They were famous for disagreeing with other other while maintaining peaceful relations.]
A man came to Tawus and said, “Advise me."
Tawus said:
I advise you to love God so deeply that nothing is more beloved to you than Him; that you fear Him until there is nothing more feared by you than Him; that you long for His mercy so intensely that it prevents that fear from overwhelming you; and that you love for other people what you love for yourself. Now stand up and leave for I have summarized for you the knowledge of the Torah, the Gospels, the Psalms and the Qur’an.” —Quoted in Zaid Shakir, Treatise for The Seekers of Guidance. P. 2231
[I assume this is Tawus Ibn Kaysan (8th cent C.E) was one of the narrators of hadith]
The similarity between these two texts is obvious. Relatively attentive public-school educated Americans of my age will recognize them as variants on the “Golden Rule”
“Do unto others what you would have them do unto you!”
This is really a paraphrase of line from the Gospels. (which of course they failed to mention)
“Treat others the way you would have them treat you …” (Matthew 7:12)
I have often wondered why Hillel’s phrasing is negative “what is hateful to you don’t do to others.” My best guess is that it is more practical. I may not know what I want but I do know what I don’t want. My desires may be a jumble of conflicting motives but I know with painful certainty what hurts me. Neurobiologists have come to the conclusion that positive and negative stimuli are processed by two side-by-side systems. The Negative system is far more sensitive and acute.2 [That’s why criticisms so often sting way far more intensely than compliments tickle the ego. The glow of a compliment may last for moments. The pain of sharp critique can last forever.] So even if this won’t necessarily lead me to do overwhelming good, it will at least lead me to immediately do no harm. That is progress.
I will add that doing for other people what you would want them to do for you is risky business. Think of all those gifts that you got for someone else because YOU liked them. I suspect we are much more alike in what we find aversive than in what we find attractive.
In addition to introductory call to love and fear of G-d which is as kosher as it is beautiful, Tawus’ version adds a passion to the concept. LOVE for others what you love for yourself. Its not only about what you do. Its about really caring and investing yourself which, of course, will lead to doing for others.
And both sources agree, this is the BIG THING. This is the ultimate piece of advice.
The key to using this advice effectively and perhaps the most amazing similarity between these two texts is at the end.
Hillel says “Go and learn!”
Tawus tells his student “Stand up and leave!”
Now get up and do something about it. Go learn more. Go do what I said. You got the message. This is not information to sit on. You got the advice and now its yours and its up to you to decide what you do with it.
That Greek boy standing precariously balanced on one foot and Tawus’ anonymous seeker, who are they really? They are everyone and they are all of us. And the message to us is clear. We have been reminded that amidst the complexity of all that we do to serve G-d there is an inner simplicity. We are in amazing training programs designed to make us wonderful people who love and fear their Creator but the ultimate mission is the furthering of kindness3 in the world. Learning how to do that in the real world is our job.
“Go!” says Hillel
“Stand up and leave!” says Tawus.
(Note from Bad Hijabi) Love God and Believe in God are not the same behaviour or relationship with yourself or humanity or the world. If that word “God” still weirds you out, then think of God as a word for everything and everyone and all times and the whole damn world and universe — all the things about existing, that’s God. Do you believe in existence, or do you LOVE it? Different sauce in each of those curries, to use a metaphor. Which one is your spice?
(Note from Bad Hijabi) Simply put, our brains have evolved to more acutely glom onto the negative stimulus in our environment out of a self preservation instinct, it takes work to maintain one’s nervous system in the vagal ventral (safe social) state, it is not necessarily a given that this our normal resting state.
(Note from Bad Hijabi) This does not mean hedonistic secular kindness, it means spiritual, godcentric kindness.